ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) In July, I used ideas from Jeremy Grantham to lay out a case for taking advantage of a coming “commodities crash” to invest in and prepare for a future resource-constrained world: “Preparing for Profits in … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) Last week (July 22) I summarized Seagate’s earnings commentary partially blaming a “bubble” in rare earth prices for causing a margin squeeze for the company. Seagate management claimed that the soaring prices of rare earth … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) The shorts finally nailed AK Steel (AKS) (shorts are about 17% of AKS’s float). On July 26, AKS reported it will be squeezed by lower steel prices and higher input costs – especially iron ore. … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) Alix Steel, a reporter for thestreet.com, discussed gold on Nightly Business Report, July 26. She claimed that gold’s low volume, summer rally is being fueled by fears of a default on U.S. debt. Nevermind that … Read more
Commodities continue to exhibit a dichotomy of patterns. Some have made new 52-week (and all-time) highs as they continue to recover from June’s selling. Others, like BAL, the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Cotton Total Return Sub-Index ETN, have continued a strong sell-off. On July 18, the stock gapped down, but buyers immediately closed the gap and … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) I have not updated my “sentiment” analysis on gold in nine months…{snip}…I think this is a great time to take a fresh look. {snip}…I use Google Trends on the terms “buy gold” and “sell gold” … Read more
Ivory Johnson: Why Gold Is Not a Bubble — CNBC Guest Blog The chorus of anti-gold rabble-rousers find themselves in some type of losing streak. Experts have predicted the demise of gold for roughly four years now, a period when gold has outperformed the S&P 500 by over 125 percent. Missing the first leg of … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) For some time now, rare earth supply, demand, and prices have been hot topics of discussion and debate. While these elements are critical components in many high-tech products, they usually represent a very small part … Read more
Central Banks' First-Half Gold Buying Surpasses 2010 Total – CNBC Central banks have bought more gold in the first half of this year than in all of 2010 as a long-anticipated reversal in so-called "official sector" sales gathers pace, a gold group reported on Thursday. (tags: gold central_banks)
“Fed May Launch New Round of Stimulus.” So rang the headlines. The Federal Reserve seemed poised to launch another round of quantitative easing if only it had a weak economy to generate the proper excuse. An Associate Press article about steel stocks suggested that the market’s rally was specifically about the prospect of potential stimulus: … Read more